Resounding Echoes
by Shadowdragon1317
Summary: "Darkness is inevitable. But we are illuminators, givers of hope, and a light to guide the lost back home." Twelve is alone and lost, wondering if he's even worthy to be a Doctor. But some familiar faces from his past help him to look past the reflections he wanted and see the man who was next in line to protect the universe and show the stars to those worthy individuals.


**I haven't seen the first episode yet, so I'm sorry Capaldi is better than Twelve in my story. But I hope you guys still like it nonetheless! This is my first Doctor Who story!**

There were scarcely anything reflective aboard the ship anymore. He'd tossed it into some long forgotten room, and with the hundreds of billions here, the chance of finding them were monumentally slim. Clara on occasion asked him why he hid mirrors behind locked doors and refused to look down at the reflective puddles beneath his shoes.

He gave no answer. He was the Doctor. The Doctor is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Like wrapping paper on the oddest and intriguing Christmas present and you couldn't find a way to open it up and reveal its secrets.

His face had aged, he could tell from the wrinkles he felt whenever he held his hand against his mouth. His hair had gone from long and sleek raven colored to a soft gray. His attitude was reminiscent of an old friend from the last face. A twinge of Scottish ginger that still made him laugh as he thought of old journeys in this brilliant and old ship. But he had grown fond of his faces feeling youthful, of the childish delight he took in exploring, the way he seemed to be talkative and reliable.

This him was like his first, aged and distrustful. He wanted to lie more often. He was more impatient and the brilliance of humans had dimmed to a waning glow.

Yet the Doctor easily slipped into his new façade. He still showed his Impossible Girl the universe. She deserved that and more. She actually got his people to give him more life, and to convince a Time-Lord to do something, one either had to be cunning and sly like the Master, or guilt-trip them into returning an old debt that was yet to be paid. But he could feel the uneasiness from Clara like cactus needles.

She didn't love this him. She cared for him, and still was the closest friend in the universes. But her love faded even before a word was spoken. Because he had taken her Doctor and replaced him with a poor duplicate. Same memories, sure. But completely different man. The Doctor couldn't blame the Londoner for the lost feeling. Not like it hasn't happened before. The responding emotion however was still a blow. It still felt like the man the Doctor was now had taken his Impossible Girl away from a man who'd not only been her friend for months, but a man who would've been so much more.

_I won't forget one line of this. I swear. I'll never forget when the Doctor was me._

The Doctor made good on that promise. He sat down alone in his room sometimes when Clara left to teach. He wondered back to days of Eleven's hour, of Ten's lasting curse of love and loss, of every single face. That was why he hid mirrors away. The Doctor didn't know who's reflection he wanted staring back at him. Or if that the face he had wouldn't feel like him at all. Just... a stranger looking into the windows of the soul.

"Am I a good man?" the question kept repeating, a repetitive sound that seemed to be akin to the Master's drumbeat. All companions had replied with an unwavering yes, saying that although he wasn't perfect, he was far from evil. But not all of them had seen his vengeful bloodlust. The Racnoss, the Daleks aboard the crucible, the Wire who had taken Rose's face. Anyone who had hurt him, or tried to hurt him through his Children of Time, had met his bitter rage and had been obliterated.

Battle, blood, and death spread from his hands like a plague. Whoever he touched got infected and soon were ripped mercilessly from his hearts. There was nothing that could change that. Loss was always behind every happiness. It's what he now came to expect with every person he visits.

"Am I a good man?" the Doctor spoke aloud for the second time. Clara once answered that she didn't know anymore. It frightened him to think about the alternative. A scourge, a merciless beast that only wants to hurt the universe in the same way he's been hurt. The Victorious in Ten's time was a manifestation of that monster the Doctor never wanted to be.

Would this new personality be the one to destroy rather than save?

"Real life and soul you are mate." a familiar voice answers his fleeting thoughts of despair. The Doctor's sharp eyes quickly snapped up to see his reflection. He hadn't even noticed that he was now in a different room, the one full of mirrors. Reflections of himself were in front of him. But not the one he expected. This man who stared back had spiky brown hair, sideburns, a long frock coat, and sandshoes. The tenth incarnation who kept breaking his own hearts after a stream of loves, lovers, a few marriages, and best friends each wore away at him. But yet he still had that one raised eyebrow that made him look a bit mischievous. Ten grinned largely as he jammed his fists into his suit pants. This was the Doctor he wished were still him. Even with the old sandshoes.

"They are _not _sandshoes!" the flippant and irritated reply to the thought nearly made Twelve chuckle in remembrance. In that time, his Converse was one of the two most important things he wanted with him. Well, those, his coat from Janis Joplin, and his sonic.

"Yes they are!" Twelve turned again to see Eleven's face in the mirror just to the right of Ten's. He was in his signature bowtie and purple jacket. He nonchalantly combed his fingers through the long black hair that swept off to the side. His face was alight in it's natural look of child-like excitement. Somehow, much to Twelve's amusement, Eleven managed to find a fez. Always a fez. After all, they were only slightly cooler than Stetsons.

"Oi, Chinny! At least I wasn't in tweed and suspenders!"

"I had few resources to go on at the moment!"

"You could've gone to the costume room in the TARDIS!"

"Not when I couldn't find it!" Eleven gestured at the old ship before making the statement. "She hid the room from me for months! Only until my Ponds were gone did I find it again!"

Ten's face suddenly lost all of it's joking mirth and looked in pity towards his successor. This was another reason why Ten was one of Twelve's favorite Doctors. Ten was the Doctor who was born out of love for Rose, and kept things close to heart. He was the Doctor that felt the most human.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Ten replied sullenly for a moment, but then after looking back at Twelve was he back to his normal happy-go-lucky physique. Eleven started as he too looked back at his successor with an easy smile before he clapped his hands together jubilantly and began pacing inside the mirror frantically. Mumbled words were incoherent as he gestured wildly to Twelve.

"It's fine, it's fine. Now to the task at hand. How're you doing Doctor? Why are you here? Normally, we'd have been avoiding this room due to the fun and games and adventurous mysteries we get into." Eleven looked to Ten before muttering again, "Unless we have a bit of vanity issues..."

"Heard that Mr. Holmes!" Before Eleven could reply, Ten strolled up as close as he could get to the edge of the mirror. He had a concerned look on his face that Twelve knew well. It was reminiscent of Donna's self claimed "Dad Shock" face. It had worry written into the lines on his face, and calm in his eyes. There was something he was hiding, of course. When wasn't he? But it seemed that Ten was hiding not a thought, but an emotion. Something had to bleed through his posture, a slip of this graceful mask he taught himself to hide behind. What would he hide from himself?

Ah. Yes. Only one emotion. Empathy. Ten was empathetic to Twelve, and perhaps even understanding the pain of changing.

At least Eleven wasn't alone when he regenerated. Twelve wasn't born into darkness, alone and unsure of himself. He was brought into this new life with someone who loved him. Ten died alone. He had saved every companion he traveled with in his incarnation, but the universe still ended his life. Eleven was created in fear and self-hatred for driving his friends away. Perhaps that's why he was so child-like in that form. He wanted to be loved by a family who wouldn't get hurt by doing so. Twelve looked again at his predecessor, his kind aged eyes to his innocent air about him.

"Who am I?"

The two previous mirror-ridden Doctors looked at Twelve curiously. Ten's eyebrow was raised while Eleven looked at him with a deductive stare. The oldest (at least appearance wise) Doctor looked in almost desperation at his reflections. His hands curled into fists as he held them against his sides. Emotions bubbled under the surface, so Twelve hid them away. It didn't stop him from glancing to Eleven and asking again,

"Who am I? A wolf in sheep's clothing?" Twelve began solemnly. "Am I just going to lose everyone like I always do? Am I just the man who could never get it right?"

Eleven promptly sat down in his own place in his mirror before answering.

"It's not getting it wrong to grow to love and lose someone. You always remember whoever touches our hearts. You know it, my friend. You're us. We're you. And whatever the universe does to push us towards doom or destiny, it's always going to be because you're going to be the one to stop. To be the dragonslayer, the hero. Because here, in this universe, in almost every time we visit, here be dragons."

Ten nodded, flashing his nearly maniac grin as he looked back at Twelve with hope filling his eyes.

"Well, dragons in the forms of everything from Angels to Daleks." Twelve replied with a first genuine laugh that escaped his aged lips. Then his predecessors stared back at the current Doctor, who had displayed a single tear track from his left eye. But the older incarnation didn't wipe it away. Because for once, in this spectacular new life of this regeneration, he was proud of who he was. Of what he'll write himself to be.

"Well Doctor, why were you really here?" Ten raised an eyebrow suspiciously, but also in good spirit. So for this special instance, he broke his code 1 rule of his lying habits to answer the Sandshoes Doctor.

"I guess it had to do with the mixture of being a new man, and wishing for a life I used to have."

"Nothing is eternal. But just know this Doctor, just keep traveling. Bring people along, show them the universe. Give them the path to pave for their destinies. That's when the Doctor would have done his duty. Fixing those who desperately wished for something greater than themselves and giving them a whole new reason to help carve humanity for it's golden age that is still to come."

Ten's answer surprised him. It shouldn't really, since he sometimes still had that gob with Clara. But it made the weight on his chest become less noticeable. The air seemed anew with life and energy. Twelve turned around to face the wall. He knew that there was going to be a coming storm. He could sense it. The east winds stacking against him and becoming a torrent of eventual destruction and possible heartbreak.

"Darkness is inevitable. But we are illuminators, givers of hope, and a light to guide the lost back home."

The Doctor turned to see which of his reflections spoke, but found that an older man with gray hair and a nice suit had taken their place. Something about this incarnation seemed to have a faint resemblance to Three. But he couldn't quite place where exactly...

Oh well. Questions for another time perhaps. But there was something he needed to do first.

* * *

The Doctor now held his long coat from Janis Joplin in one hand, his beloved bowtie in a box in the other. The TARDIS, the sentimental one she was, led him to a room he hadn't seen in years. The round things in the wall glowed a faint yellow. The green light of the whoosing thing on the console let out a faint groan to welcome him back. But the Doctor was glad that the coral had been repaired and saved before his regeneration into Eleven. He'd actually sort of missed this design.

Not enough to change his new current one, but still.

He placed the coat on the coral where he normally flopped it as Ten, and put the bowtie near the console facing the door, where he'd been born. Twelve smiled as when he blinked, he saw Ten and Eleven standing there by the controls, just like they used to be when they were him. The question, however, on Twelve's lips came spilling out before he'd stopped it.

"Will you always be here?"

The pair of young men glanced at each other before smiling and nodding to Twelve. Ten combed his fingers through his hair to get the spiked hair to stay up as he verbally answered.

"Oh, we'll always be here. After all, we are all the Doctor, right? Even regenerated, we still hang about."

"We stay here as long as we live. So basically Doctor, you can see us, and we can talk to you. We still see every inch of the universe. We just aren't in the physical form, spirits as you will. Visible only to you and the Old Girl." Eleven finished, rubbing the humming, uppy-downy thing. Twelve nodded, and began to walk out the door when the pair of youngest Doctors called out,

"Doctor!"

Twelve turned one last time to see them grin as they sat against the pilot's seat.

"You're in for a great life. Make it rememberable, and make it worth living." Ten had wrapped his arms around Twelve for a long moment before saying,

"_Allons-y!_" Ten was gone in a blink, but Twelve knew that he was still around, waiting for Eleven's last words.

The Eleventh Doctor strolled up casually. His omnipresent smile was still on his face as he straightened his bowtie. He clasped his successor on the shoulder before a happy tear peaked out from his eyes. Wiping it away with his free hand, Eleven spoke softly,

"Be proud to stand here and be the Doctor. You're going to make the stars shine a bit brighter once you're done with them. And one more thing, my friend." Eleven paused a moment before he hugged Twelve tightly.

"If anyone was worthy to be my successor, it was going to be you."

A wink by Eleven, before his own cry of "Geronimo!" echoed through the unused console room and Twelve was left alone again. But this time it was different. The choking feeling of forced exile wasn't there. It was comfortable, and so, _completely _the Doctor. So Twelve walked out and shut the TARDIS door. He knew he was going to see his fellow Doctors again. Soon.

But for now, he was going to be spectacular and be the Doctor.

Now is his hour to take the show. And it is going to be fantastic.

**The End! Wow, I actually really liked my one-shot! R&R please! And I hope to see some of my fellow Whovians excited for this season like I am!**

**PS: ATTENTION ALL WHOVIANS. I WOULD LIKE TO START A WHOLE NEW ASPECT OF THE ALS WATER BUCKET CHALLENGE. IF ALL OF US WHOVIANS START POSTING AND MAKING VIDEOS OF US DOING THE CHALLENGE, AND NOMINATING THE DOCTORS TO DO IT, CHANCES ARE THE STARS WILL SEE. WILL YOU GUYS HELP ME?**

**Dragon Out!**


End file.
